Lindstrøm
February 4, 2010Comments Off
Raised on country and western music in the outskirts of the Norwegian oil town Stavanger, Lindstrom now lives in Oslo where he is making contemporary disco and running his Feedelity label. Claiming that “Hans-Peter Lindstrosm is closing in on Henrik Ibsen and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as being Norway’s poster boy of choice” (quoting an article on Piccadilly Records website) is obviously quite an overstatement, but nonetheless his original approach to dance music is currently causing quite a stir.
Following a consistent flow of highly acclaimed EPs and remixes for names like Franz Ferdinand and LCD Soundsystem and The Juan Maclean, expectations were rocketing to the Lindstrom & Prins Thomas album, which also marks Eskimo Recordings long player debut. Judging from the press and record buyers alike, the album – which might be described as downbeat space disco with a singer/songwriter feel – more than lived up to its expectations. Whether it was that specialist dance music website or the broadsheet critic, they all seemed to pick up on the fact that these boys are not your average electronic music makers. (To avoid confusion: Lindstrom works both as a solo artist and in collaboration with Prins Thomas).
Hans-Peter never listened to dance music growing up, and the first time he really listened to it, was a few years back figuring out how to make it. He prefers quiet nights in with his family, and Hans Peter never really goes clubbing unless he’s Lindstrom. As for artistic background, he used to play the piano in a gospel choir and the Hammond organ in a Deep Purple tribute band in his early twenties, before getting into Bob Dylan and folk/country music. Around 99′ he got all fed up with music, sold his instruments, and moved from Stavanger to study literature at the University of Oslo. As retirement often proves unbearable to music lovers, he soon found himself busking the main street of Oslo with his guitar. One thing led to the other: he bought a sampler, borrowed a few 12″s to study the structure of dance music, and had a go at it.
It’s quite impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of his musical originality, although traces might be found in the aforementioned background. Coming from gospel choirs, country and rock bands without any knowledge of dance music whatsoever, he entered the scene rather freed from any preconceived notions of style and trend parameters. He hung on to the habit of making music by playing melodies on real instruments, and the fact that he plays all the instruments on his recordings – guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and percussion- enables him to make music inspired by whatever his influences are at the moment Last time we spoke to him he was mostly listening to 60s and 70s rock and pop, and he reckons that music from that era is much more interesting, both in terms of song writing and production values.
His first success was the jazzy “Granada”, being championed by the likes of Giles Peterson and Francois Kevorkian and signed to numerous compilations. Wanting to take charge of his own career, he set up Feedelity Recordings – referring to the contrast between feedback and high fidelity – in 2003, and released “the untitled EP” which at first sold the massive amount of 150 copies. The track being included on the Chicken Lips DJ-Kicks compilation did the job though, and the recent club monster “I feel Space” shifting more than 17.000 twelve inches tells of a tale that went quite well in the end.
Lindstrom today enjoys a cult-like status within dance music circles, and although the humble guy himself seems quite happy doing what he loves on an underground scale, it will be an interesting watch to see what the future holds for the Norwegian talent.
(written by Marius Jøntvedt, may 2006)
Sunburned Hand Of The Man
February 4, 2010Comments Off
Sunburned started as a 4 piece group by John Moloney, Robert Thomas, Chad Cooper and Rich Thomas. They played social music. Informal music, unshaped, unstructured, but completely shaped by modern culture, the cultural after-effects of world war 2, and our socio-religious backgrounds. The band spent an equal amount of time, if not more, making films with Rich behind the camera’s eye. These were unscripted, absurd interpretations based on surreal urban dialogue and scenery. The name of the band was born from one of Rob’s film monologues. That was 1996. From then up until May 2006 Sunburned has been based at their Charlestown, Massachusetts Loft. The building served as a meeting place for open ideas and open music. Shortly after the band’s inception more people joined the group giving what time they could. Everything got recorded, everything.
Sunburned never really had an official membership, the band were mainly centred around John Moloney and Rob Thomas. Like the Moon, Sunburned has phases. Like the Sun, Sunburned generates energy and life. Life generates connections. Sunburned supported Four Tet for a 2 week tour in the spring of 2004. They became friends. Fast forward to March 2006. Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden asks the band if they would like him to record them in a London studio with the idea that he would take the recordings and construct his vision of a Sunburned record. And here it is.
As a leader and original gangster in the ‘new weird movement’ Sunburned has been at the forefront of a constantly growing and interesting music & art scene. Sunburned has been passed the torch of tradition through exploration and expression and have shared the stage with heavyweights such as Sonic Youth, John Fahey, Sun City Girls, Michael Hurley, Michael Chapman, Julian Cope, Dinosaur Jr., Mission of Burma.
If the foundation of the ‘new building’ were composed of bricks, the load bearing stones would be Sunburned, No Neck Blues Band, Vibracathedral Orchestra, MV-EE, Six Organs of Admittance, Charalambides, Double Leopards, Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Comets on Fire, Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty, Dredd Foole, Joshua, Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Jackie O’ Motherfucker, Acid Mother’s Temple, Jack Rose, Sunn O))), Sunroof!, Magik Markers, Hush Arbors, Wooden Wand and Four Tet. All of whom Sunburned has shared the stage with and have shared members on occasion.
Sunburned has been putting out a regular stream of recordings mostly on their own label – Manhand / Sunburned Records. From time to time, Sunburned has teamed up with like- minded labels to release records such as Smalltown Supersound and Thurston Moore`s Ecstatic Peace.
Sunburned, as an ‘entity’, is an artist and its medium is recorded music and to a lesser degree, film. Sunburned records are like paintings of sound, mostly hand-packaged and sometimes limited to the interest in that particular ‘piece’ would demand. In 2005/2006 Sunburned members branched out, John Moloney joining Six Organs of Admittance and Howlin Rain. Paul Labrecque & Valerie Webb releasing an LP for Eclipse, Athyr Myth’d (Ron Schneiderman, Paul Labrecque & Joshua Burkett) toured the Benelux. The Michael Flower Band with Sunburned members john Moloney and Chris Corsano (also known for his work with Bjork, both live and on her new album) hit the stage, and United Light was formed with John Moloney, Mick Flower from VCO, and Jackie O’ Motherfucker’s Tom Greenwood. Also in 2006 Taylor Richardson, Hush Arbor’s Keith Wood, and VCO’s Michael Flower and Bridget Hayden joined the group and toured extensively through the US, Canada and Europe. Sunburned also teamed up with poet/filmmaker, and photographer Ira Cohen for the recording of an alternate soundtrack to Cohen’s psychedelic film masterpiece, “The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda” which was released on Arthur Magazine’s Bastet label.
On Fire Escape Sunburned consists of an all star line up, all of whom are members of the movement which is Sunburned Hand of the Man. Sunburned is not a band in the traditional sense, Sunburned is a collection of like minded artists and musicians gathered together for the purposes of group exploration and an undying search for the ‘ecstatic truth’ which fuels us all. Led these days by John Moloney, Sunburned is whoever you see on stage, whoever you think about when you listen and the sound of that feeling you get that is closer to the bone and closest to the truth whether you want to believe in it or not.
Sunburned Hand Of The Man on Fire Escape are:
Kieran Hebden (Fourtet) – Piano, Production & Mix
Robert Thomas – Bass
John Moloney – Drums, Beats & Vocals
Ron Schneiderman – Guitar, percussion & winds
Marc Orleans – Guitar, Casio, Winds
Michael Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra) – Trumpet, Guitar, Percussion
Bridget Hayden (Vibracathedral Orchestra) – Voice, Viola, Piano
Keith Wood – Guitar, Percussion, Winds
Toy
February 4, 2010Comments Off
“Prozac-flavoured glory” (BBC Radio 3)
Toy is an electronic duo formed by UK composer Alisdair Stirling and producer Jorgen Traeen from Bergen, Norway. Toy’s playful tunes mix kids TV (Pingu, Radiophonic Workshop) and Japanese style electronica (YMO and Cornelius) with a touch of Scandinavian electro weirdness. They also manage to combine a flavour of incidental/elevator music with beats and grooves to create infectious pop. Stirling is behind the Bergen pop workshop/collective ‘House of Hiss’, working with Bergen producers The Sensible Twins (Hans Petter Gundersen and Kato Adland) which released ‘Holland Park/Sugar Shoop’ seven inch vinyl on New Records last year. Traeen is a well know producer who among others has produced Sondre Lerche, Magnet and Jaga Jazzist.He also has his own solo project Sir Dupermann on Smalltown Supersound. The band released ‘Rabbit Pushing Mower/Valley Cars’ as a vinyl seven inch on Telle Records described by the BBC as “an amusing cream puff of a tune”. Their second vinyl single ‘Sedan Through Tunnel/Decorama’ is about to be released on Smalltown Supersound. The same label will later on in 2005 also release the debut album by Toy.
Lars Horntveth
February 4, 2010Comments Off
“Unbelievably graceful instrumental” (NME)
“Gorgeous, cinematic and brilliant” (DJ Magazine)
“An electro-acoustic wonder” (The Independent)
Smalltown Supersound is proud to present Kaleidoscopic, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed debut album, Pooka, by Jaga Jazzist and The National Bank leader Lars Horntveth. Kaleidoscopic consists of one 37 minute long composition and was recorded with 41 members of the Latvian National Orchestra (34 string players, 3 percussionists, clarinet, flute, bass
trombone and one harp), with Lars Horntveth himself playing piano, horns, and clarinets. The orchestra was lead by the Norwegian conductor Terje Mikkelsen, who now conducts the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and the Moscow Radio Orchestra. While Mikkelsen conducted the orchestra over a two day span in a small church in Riga, Latvia, Lars and producer Jørgen Sir Dupermann Traen concentrated on listening to the takes and commenting on which direction they wanted the music to take.
Lars’ dogma in creating this album was to write the music chronologically into an open, endless score, similar to a diary. Intending for the music to flow from idea to idea, Lars wanted the score to grow and develop along with his state of mind. Rather than create ten songs for an album and then sequence the tracks to have a smooth curve of tension and release, Lars wanted to make a larger, more encompassing curve, and accomplish it in just one song. The album is a journey in sound, it’s form fitting somewhere between Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians and KLF’s Chill Out. It is a musical experience from start to finish, an auditory trip into very different rooms and moods, with great contrast and surprises from one musical genre to the next. In a recent interview with a Norwegian newspaper, Horntveth explained that he was inspired musically by Jim O’ Rourke’s guitar
playing, Robert Wyatt’s use of contrasts, Stereolab..s playfulness, the soulful and inventive drumming on Dave Brubeck’’s Take Five, Joanna Newsom’s unconventional take on pop, Hitchcock-composer Bernard Herrmann’’s moods, and Jean-Claude Vannier’’s string arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg.
Kaleidoscopic was launched in Norway at the Oya Festival where the whole album was played in its entirety by Horntveth and the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra. Amongst many of the glowing reviews, Pitchfork wrote “It sounded lovely and professional, quite a bit like Jaga’s sprightly yet severe post-rock/jazz, with a more classical bent.”
Horntveth..s musical skills are self taught, starting Jaga Jazzist when he was 15 years old. Since then he has created five albums with the band. He debuted with his solo album Pooka in 2004 to wide critical acclaim. The album was awarded two different Norwegian Grammies: The Spellemann Prize, and the more alternative-leaning Alarm Prize. Horntveth has contributed to
and written music for over 50 albums, including Turbonegro, Magnet, and Motorpsycho, among others. He has written three film scores, as well as music for several radio plays and theatrical productions. Kaleidoscopic is the largest and most challenging project Lars has accomplished to this day.
Kaleidoscopic’s artwork is by Kim Hiorthoy and it’s liner notes were written by John Szwed, author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra and So What: The Life of Miles Davis.
http://www.myspace.com/larshorntveth
You can buy Lars Horntveth and Jaga Jazzist stuff here
Bjørn Torske
February 4, 2010Comments Off
Bjørn Torske comes from the capital of electronic music in Norway, Tromsø, a small town far north over the artic circle. This town has bred great artists such as Mental Overdrive, Biosphere and Royksopp. Through Geir Jenssen, Torske got in touch with SSR/Crammed Discs in Belgium, and in 1991 he appeared on two separate 12″ singles on the label. Dutch label Djax-Up-Beats picked up on the talented young Norwegian, and the following years Torske released a string of underground 12″ singles on Djax-Up-Beats and other labels, such as Reinforced Records, run by Mark & Dego of 4Hero. Still early 90’s, Torske soon moved to Bergen. At this time he played synthesizer on Biosphere’s live shows, and toured around the world with Geir Jenssen. After releasing an album on Djax-Up-Beats in 1995 Torske concentrated on DJing for a couple of years, releasing only one single on Per Martinsen’s Love OD label. It did have a noticeable impact, though. «Fleet» became a club hit in Amsterdam, and was pumped regularly by DJs like Dimitri and Derrick May. Eventually Ferox-boss Russ Gabriel got to hear Torske’s music. He immediately phoned Torske, led to the release the album «Nedi Myra». The album caused quite a stir around the world. Back in Norway some of Bjørn’s fellow Tromsø-dwellers, like Röyksopp’s Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland moved to Bergen. New acts, clubs and labels were emerging in town, transforming the otherwise sleepy university town on Norway’s west coast to the hippest place to be. Meanwhile, Bjørn had started releasing singles through prestigious house label SVEK. In 1998 his friend Mikal Telle founded TellĂ© Records, and invited Bjørn to join in on the fun. Bjørn released «Disco Members» on TellĂ© in 2000 as well as taking take time off to release the brilliant «Aerosoles» on SVEK. In the same period Torske also produced his next album, Trøbbel on Telle Records, as well as remixing his friends and studiopartners Røyksopp`s first hit single “Eple”. Torske also toured Europe with Royksopp in the spring of 2002.
Lindstrøm
February 4, 2010Comments Off
Raised on country and western music in the outskirts of the Norwegian oil town Stavanger, Lindstrom now lives in Oslo where he is making contemporary disco and running his Feedelity label. Claiming that “Hans-Peter Lindstrosm is closing in on Henrik Ibsen and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as being Norway’s poster boy of choice” (quoting an article on Piccadilly Records website) is obviously quite an overstatement, but nonetheless his original approach to dance music is currently causing quite a stir.
Following a consistent flow of highly acclaimed EPs and remixes for names like Franz Ferdinand and LCD Soundsystem and The Juan Maclean, expectations were rocketing to the Lindstrom & Prins Thomas album, which also marks Eskimo Recordings long player debut. Judging from the press and record buyers alike, the album – which might be described as downbeat space disco with a singer/songwriter feel – more than lived up to its expectations. Whether it was that specialist dance music website or the broadsheet critic, they all seemed to pick up on the fact that these boys are not your average electronic music makers. (To avoid confusion: Lindstrom works both as a solo artist and in collaboration with Prins Thomas).
Hans-Peter never listened to dance music growing up, and the first time he really listened to it, was a few years back figuring out how to make it. He prefers quiet nights in with his family, and Hans Peter never really goes clubbing unless he’s Lindstrom. As for artistic background, he used to play the piano in a gospel choir and the Hammond organ in a Deep Purple tribute band in his early twenties, before getting into Bob Dylan and folk/country music. Around 99′ he got all fed up with music, sold his instruments, and moved from Stavanger to study literature at the University of Oslo. As retirement often proves unbearable to music lovers, he soon found himself busking the main street of Oslo with his guitar. One thing led to the other: he bought a sampler, borrowed a few 12″s to study the structure of dance music, and had a go at it.
It’s quite impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of his musical originality, although traces might be found in the aforementioned background. Coming from gospel choirs, country and rock bands without any knowledge of dance music whatsoever, he entered the scene rather freed from any preconceived notions of style and trend parameters. He hung on to the habit of making music by playing melodies on real instruments, and the fact that he plays all the instruments on his recordings – guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and percussion- enables him to make music inspired by whatever his influences are at the moment Last time we spoke to him he was mostly listening to 60s and 70s rock and pop, and he reckons that music from that era is much more interesting, both in terms of song writing and production values.
His first success was the jazzy “Granada”, being championed by the likes of Giles Peterson and Francois Kevorkian and signed to numerous compilations. Wanting to take charge of his own career, he set up Feedelity Recordings – referring to the contrast between feedback and high fidelity – in 2003, and released “the untitled EP” which at first sold the massive amount of 150 copies. The track being included on the Chicken Lips DJ-Kicks compilation did the job though, and the recent club monster “I feel Space” shifting more than 17.000 twelve inches tells of a tale that went quite well in the end.
Lindstrom today enjoys a cult-like status within dance music circles, and although the humble guy himself seems quite happy doing what he loves on an underground scale, it will be an interesting watch to see what the future holds for the Norwegian talent.
(written by Marius Jøntvedt, may 2006)
Arp
February 4, 2010Comments Off
Recorded over the course of a year in which it’s author Alexis Georgopoulos relocated from California (San Francisco) to New York, The Soft Wave, ARP’s 2nd album, captures a transitional period. If his debut In Light found inspiration in the white light particular to California – not to mention a certain cultural isolation and an inclination towards pastoral Kosmishe records – The Soft Wave embodies a significant shift. It is a significant development.
The Soft Wave will rush up to you slowly – but it will hit you. It will dowse you. In it, you’ll find flecks of slatted light and ultraviolets. You’ll locate an engaging peace within the ecstatic racket. You will recline in The Soft Wave. If it moves with elegance, with patience, there are rushes too.
Whereas In Light was made with only vintage analog synthesizers, The Soft Wave incorporates an arsenal of guitars, piano, flute, Ebows. The result is a dense brocade of sound. The special yearning of pastoral visions and coastal realities remains, but here, the city peeks in. ARP is all the richer for it, and the result is a uniquely communicative mélange. As its sounds assemble, each cadence engages the kinds of subtle gifts of meaning that we find in intuition, inquiry, ecstatic states, and joy. These are pieces that speak in emphatic whispers, in a language whose compositional undertow is the same that masters our sensual lives. It is a language of inviting abstraction: friendly, even profound.
To refer to stylistic touchstones would be to list too much: Cosmic, Space Rock, Krautrock, Ethiopian Piano Music, Noise, Dub, Minimalism, Sound Library Music, Shoegaze, Spiritual Free Jazz, African High Life, Minimal Techno even the Singer / Songwriter tradition. No matter. All we need to know is that The Soft Wave, recorded to 2–inch analog tape, is a warm, enveloping music that succeeds somewhere outside the hyper-compressed digitalization of our age. That it’s warm glow – existing as it does somewhere between the philosophical tone of Brian Eno’s vocal records and a Balaeric coastal scene fit for an Eric Rohmer film – may very well appeal to a broad, sophisticated range of tastes.
The Soft Wave finally coheres with its artwork: eschewing any vacant pseudo-mysticism one might associate with such numinous music, the record’s black, white & silver cover reimagines ancient Greek classicism as something Warhol might interpret for a Fellini film with a few scenes set in 1979 Manchester. It is striking and affective.
Leading up to The Soft Wave, the past two years were full of milestones for Georgopoulos. He composed his first score for Modern Dance in Replica, a duet between Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown dancers, which debuted at New York’s New Museum. He produced a sound installation at the Audio Visual Arts gallery (Sam Amidon, Alan Licht, Kalup Linzy). He was handpicked to play a live score to artist Doug Aitken’s film Migration at 303 Gallery in New York, and was selected to participate in the Boredoms-curated 8.8.08 88-drummer extravaganza in Los Angeles. He remixed Lindstrom. His music was featured in director Gary Hurstwit’s follow-up to the Helvetica documentary, Objectified. He also made music in Q&A (formerly Expanding Head Band), his new DFA project with partner Quinn Luke, and his band The Alps released their debut studio album III (Type) to universal acclaim. ARP shared bills with Cluster (at a now legendary outdoor show on the coast of Big Sur), Sonic Boom, Lindstrøm, White Rainbow, Four Tet, Lucky Dragons, Growing, and Wooden Shjips, among others. And, most recently, he released FRKWYS Volume III, a collaborative album with minimalist composer Anthony Moore, as part of RVNG’s new FRKWYS series. The duo recently performed with a string section as part of New York City’s prestigious Wordless Music Festival.
Annie on Fader TV
February 2, 2010Comments Off
Diskjokke
February 2, 2010Comments Off
“Emotion-rich electronic disco epic” — IDJ Magazine
Following Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, diskJokke, also known as Joachim Dyrdahl, is the third artist out of the innovative Oslo scene to release a full-length album.
diskjokke was recently discovered by Prins Thomas who signed three tunes to his Full Pupp label (released on two 12” singles). Almost simultaneously in Germany, M.A.N.D.Y, DJ T and the Get Physical gang signed diskJokke for five other tunes (spread on two 12” singles) to their new Get Physical sub label, Kindish. Upon hearing his 12”s, word quickly spread about diskJokke’s quirky, spaced-out and dubby mixture of house, Italo and disco, and he was soon asked to remix tunes for a number of artists, including Lindstrom, Spektrum and Bloc Party (his 11 minutes remix of “Sunday” is to be released on Vice Records later in the year).
For years diskJokke has been closely connected to Norway’s premiere club night, Sunkissed, where he is resident DJ with G-HA, Olanskii and VinnyVillbass. He is part of the Oslo scene that has revolved around Sunkissed, as well as the Nomaden and The Villa clubs in Oslo, with Rune Lindbaek, Linstrom, Prins Thomas and Todd Terje. Smalltown Supersound discovered diskJokke when he appeared on the Sunkissed compilation earlier this year, and after hearing more of his material, they immediately knew that his music was a perfect match for the label. Now it is finally time for Smalltown Supersound to release his debut album!
Staying In, diskJokke’s debut release, is a tripped out mastodon of an album. This is the sound of Norwegian disco taken to its farthest, futuristic limits. It’s epic, groovy, cinematic, poppy and most of all melodic. But at the same time, it is melancholic, and as the title suggests, staying inside the dark winter and autumn nights to make music certainly reflects the mood of the album.
Joachim is 28 years old. He comes from Svelvik, a small town southwest of Oslo with 5,000 inhabitants, but presently lives in Oslo. Joachim is a classically trained violinist and has played since he was 5 years old. Classical music has always been and continues to be an important part of his life. He became interested in electronic music at the age of 15 when he discovered Norwegian DJ legend Olle Abstract`s radio show, and he’s been hooked ever since. Joachim is just about to finish his 8 years of studies in mathematics, however now that he has a record contact he will now focus on his music for a while and leave the math behind for the disco.
